Shaavan's guide for kids who can't tank good, and want to learn to do other stuff good too.

Subject: Shaavan's guide for kids who can't tank good, and want to learn to do other stuff good too. Mon May 16, 2011 9:35 pm

Hello and welcome to my tanking 101 per se. In this guide I want to go over the basics of tanking and share some general knowledge that I've come across in my days of DotA and LoL (and very little HoN). First of all let's go over what your tank is in the current MOBA genre.

What is a tank?

When people think of a tank, they usually revert to classic MMORPG games as someone who is to taunt the boss of you and be extremely durable. This is not true in MOBA's at all. If you're hard to kill you have no threat system to effectively hold 'aggro' off of your teamates. In League of Legends a tank does need to be sturdy, but more important mobility and disruptiveness are the most important. Some tanks are extremely disruptive but not mobile, and some tanks are very mobile but not very disruptive. It all depends on your playstyle and how comfortable you feel doing each role. Cho'Gath and Alistar are two of the most disruptive tanks in the game followed by Malphite and Amumu. These four guys can cause absolute Chaos for the opposing team if played well. Now what do I mean by being disruptive? That's a great question, Cho and Alistar have two relatively low cooldown spells that effectively lock down the enemy team for a couple of seconds. Malphite and Amumu's ultimate abilities do as well but are on a much longer cooldown. If played well you should be able to stun (knock up) the front line of the enemy team and headbutt anyone on your carry. After this initial sequence in a fight the enemies melee champs should either be dead or your team should have broke the front line of defense and immediately start killing the enemy carry. If you are unable to lock down their carry don't be afraid to hit the tank and bruiser(s). Either make them retreat or kill them, if you spend all your time just trying to reach the carry in the back their team can and will kill you.

Who is not a tank?

Before I continue on, do not pick champions like Mordekaiser or Mundo and be ok with it. The two champions are what is known as soaks. You stand in the line of fire and eat all of the CC and skill shots you can. These two hero's take damage and dish just as much back out. The only time it is permissible to "tank" as hero's like them is if your team naturally have a lot of CC. If the other members include Kennen, Udyr/WW, Ashe (for initiation) or any other champion with a stun/root/disable you don't necessarily need more crowd control, but I still prefer it and highly recommend it.

So, who is a tank then?

Ok so you queue up for a normal game and when your champ select screen pops your four team members have already insta-locked four squishies and are spamming "tank pl0x" in chat hoping demanding that you pick a tank. So who do you pick to fearlessly lead your team to victory? You can never go wrong with the following champions in a (in)famous tier list fashion.

Tier 1 champions are must picks or bans in almost every game in my opinion. They fit so well with any comp. Tier 2 champions are only slightly behind T1. These guys have more damage output but have generally less resistances or bring less to a team then T1 champions do. I do not recommend using T3 champions as your groups main tank, these guys can build tanky items and be extremely hard to kill, but bring very little to no crowd control to your team comp.

Blitzcrank is a very great tank, he is extremely disruptive in just a few seconds, and the only reason he isn't Tier 1 is the fact that he absolutely relies on his Hook landing on an important member of the opposing team. If you're facing a good team, this is usually a 40% success rate as they can easily avoid hook by standing behind a tank or minion wave. His roaming during the lane phase is very good, and if you can afford to leave bottom lane do it.

Amumu is great tank who deals amazing damage, and is also a wonderful jungler filling two roles in your team comp. His ganks out of the jungle our great.

Alistar may be the greatest tank right now. He can roam, giving your team three solo lanes to level and farm. And the best part is he can do his job with no items and levels.

Shen is tied with Alistar for best tank right now. His presence in team fights includes a short AoE taunt but other than that isn't really noticeable. What makes this guy so good is he can just sit in a side lane and push all day. The enemy team has to send someone to defend the push and send the rest of the team to defend against your team. When the team fight breaks out he can ult to your team forcing a 5v4 or 5v3 in your favor.

Ok already, tell me how to tank!

This is the easy part, in the lane phase just protect your lane partner. Farm is important here, if you're duo lane and with someone who requires more farm than your respective champion let them last hit and you harass a little and try your best to deny the enemies gold and experience. If you can deny them gold that's good enough. You don't want to initiate a fight in this phase unless you're guaranteed a kill or two. Just focus on farming, that's most important. Don't push your lane during this, when the creep is one auto attack from dieing, just smack it and get the gold. If you're doubling as the jungler remember to clear your jungle at a reasonable speed, to pass on buff's to your team when you can jungle without them, and to harass any lane that overextends onto your side of the river. Making them waste summoners like flash is enough here.

If you're not a jungler try to take one defensive summoner spell, (ghost/flash) and one utility. Ignite (healing debuff, not damage!) exhaust, CV if your team has none (Elementz who primarily plays Alistar in CLG tournament matches takes Clairvoyance in their games most of the time) or just run ghost flash. Flash can set up really good initiations and catch the enemy off guard, when their not expecting a fight. Late game you always want to turn enemy mistakes into opportunities as much as you can. If you see the enemy team out of position at all, like if you see an opening on the enemy carry, now is the time to initiate. If you have a strong poke team like Corki/Nidalee wait for the team to fall below 75% health before initiation so your team has the health advantage. Basically capitalize on enemy mistakes whenever you can. After the initiation of a fight, just protect your carry and disable to the best of your ability. Once Xin dashes to your carry headbutt him. Jarvan ult onto your Zilean? Rupture him. Katarina Shunpo in and start her Ult? Stun her. Know when to CC and the fight should tilt to your favor.

This is a very basic guide written by a very novice player, so if anyone has anything to add, throw it in the comments below. I'm sure I got some things wrong, but hopefully this helped some players who could of used some help in their tank game.

Also, AP Alistar is OP.

Shaavan's guide for kids who can't tank good, and want to learn to do other stuff good too.